Eggs Rabona Fried Bread Sandwhiches

A traditional rabona is a fried bread sandwich – you fry the bread in oil before building your sandwich. While tasty, though, these sandwiches are rarely memorable. When playing with this recipe, I remembered a dish I used to enjoy almost weekly at a favourite Mexican restaurant: they would lay cheese flat on a grill, let it melt, and then leave it there until it charred nicely. They stopped making it and I stopped going. I thought that the thin, salty melted/fried cheese could work wonders for this sandwich., so like so many other recipes, I married two amazing foods into one delicious creation. It’s basically an inside-out grilled cheese sandwich.

Vegetable Salad

1 ½ cups (375 ml) diced cucumber

1 ½ cups (375 ml) diced red onion

1 ½ cups (375 ml) diced tomatoes

¼ cup (60 ml) cilantro leaves

1 thai red chili pepper, sliced

Juice of one lime

½ tsp (2ml) salt

½ tsp (2 ml) black pepper

Spicy Mayo:

1/3 cup (75 ml) mayonnaise

¼ cup (60 ml) Sriracha hot sauce

For Serving

8 slices of your favourite soft bread

2 cups (500 ml) finely shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

2 tbsp (30 ml) canola oil

4 large eggs

In a large bowl combine the cucumber, red onion, tomato, cilantro, chili pepper, lime juice, salt and pepper. Toss to mix, then set the salad aside to allow the flavours to mingle.

For the Spicy Mayo, mix the mayonnaise and Sriracha in a small bowl, then spread onto one side of each slice of bread.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. For each toast, sprinkle ¼ cup (60 ml) mozzarella into the frying pan in an even layer about the same size as your bread, making as many cheese layers as will fit in your pan. When the cheese has melted, place a slice of bread, spicy mayo side up, on top of each portion of cheese and fry for 2 minutes, or until crispy and golden brown. Flip the bread so that the crunchy, cheese layer is on top. Fry the second side for 2 minutes or until crispy brown. Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining cheese and bread.

In a medium frying pan, heat the canola oil over medium-high heat. Crack the eggs into the pan and turn the heat down to medium. Cook the eggs sunny side up for about 5 minutes.

To assemble, place a slice of fried bread, cheesy side down on each plate. Drain the vegetable salad, then divide it evenly among the four sandwiches. Complete each sandwich with a second piece of fried